What was the most important thing(s) you learned in BA 101 to help you get where you are today?

Two things:

1) How you present yourself, both online, on paper, and in person, is incredibly important. Whether it is a recruiter clicking on your LinkedIn profile, a hiring manager reading your resume, or a new contact at a networking event or happy hour — more often than not, you only get one shot to impress your next potential boss.

What BBA Career Services resources did you use and how did you utilize these resources to get where you are today?

1) Mock interviews — Similar to public speaking, having a plan of where you want to take the conversation and how you plan on answering questions gives you a lot of confidence, which the interviewers will notice.

2) On-Campus Recruiting Tool — Dropping your resume is free and easy. Why would you not click the ‘drop’ button? If you don’t actually apply, you definitely won’t get an interview. There is no downside.

How did you make your final choice to accept your job offer?

My first job out of McCombs was with KPMG, in the Silicon Valley, CA office. Analysis-wise, I spreadsheet’d out and compared every logical aspect of every offer: salary, bonus, vacation, location cost of living, type of work, etc. But eventually, I went with the “why not” decision. I’ve only ever lived in Texas, but… why not move to California?

Give us your best career advice.

Again, two things:

1) Don’t settle for something that you don’t find cool on some level. Coming out of school, I didn’t join KPMG because I thought it was a cool company (no offense, KPMG). Joining KPMG’s Silicon Valley office though a) let me move to California, and b) let me work with some pretty cool tech companies. There are a million different things you can find ‘cool’ about your job — the people, the work, the location, the clients, the tech, whatever… just make sure it isn’t the salary or signing bonus. You have plenty of time to make as much money as you want.

2) Please, please, please… don’t let your skills become stale. You have a great degree that will open a lot of doors, congrats. That degree isn’t a pass to quit learning. Whether its a new coding language or a new structured finance derivative, to remain relevant in the market, you have to be on top of what is going on now, and what will be going on next.

Please state if you are open to students reaching out to you via LinkedIn for virtual mentorship